I running my FreeNAS system on a Dell PowerEdge T20 with 4 internal SATA drives. Since this uses up all the power and SATA connections on the motherboard, I’m booting off a USB SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB. I have two of these mirrored. One of the Cruzer Fit’s went bad and my boot volume was in a degraded state. I isolated the bad Cruzer Fit and ordered two more off of Amazon. I tried to replace the bad one but it would not work. I’m guessing that the issue was because the size of the new Cruzer Fit was .2 mb smaller. It is my understanding that for the mirror to work that the two USB drives have to be the same size or larger.
This is where my issue started. I also need to state that I am running FreeNAS 11.2. Since the FreeNAS system was still working, I was able to make backup of the confirmation file. Took me a long time to figure out where this was located in 11.2. [System -> General -> (Save Config)]. At this point, I download FreeNAS 11.2-RELEASE-U1 used the portable version of Rufus. Someone needs to update the install instructions for Windows where they tell you go and download the program from Microsoft (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool). That does not work with this iso. Plus that is a very old program.
At this point, I’m ready to go, I put in the new USB Cruzer Fit and the USB that I put the install in and go to boot. Took me awhile to figure out that Dell T20 requires the USB boot installer to be the first USB that it finds. If you put them in different order it does not work. This is the first time that I have seen a BIOS that won’t let you choose which USB drive. Really kind of strange. I figured out the order and got it to boot up.
This is where I run into my issue with the Installer. I get the menu that has:
1 Install/update
2 Shell
3 Reboot System
4 Shutdown
I put (1 Install/update), but the menu comes back and it does not give me a list of drive to choose where to install. I tried moving the Cruzer Fit to different USB ports but it just won’t get past the menu. I spent like 20 mins fooling around with this. I then went and downloaded the older version of FreeNAS and had the same issue. Just for the hell of it, I stuck the 2rd new Cruzer Fit into a USB port and guess what? I got the next menu where you could choose the install. Since my configuration that I saved with with 11.2, I went back to that version of the installer and boot from that with both of the new Cruzer Fits installed. I got the menu where you could choose which drive to install on. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the “Choose destination media” menu. Because something was off with one of the Cruzer Fits it did not have the device name (da0p2) in front like the other drives. But it saw one of them fine, so I choose it. Did the install, then I sent up the mirror by going to (System -> Boot Environments -> [Boot Pool Status]) and clicking the 3 dots by freenas-boot and clicking on
This is where my issue started. I also need to state that I am running FreeNAS 11.2. Since the FreeNAS system was still working, I was able to make backup of the confirmation file. Took me a long time to figure out where this was located in 11.2. [System -> General -> (Save Config)]. At this point, I download FreeNAS 11.2-RELEASE-U1 used the portable version of Rufus. Someone needs to update the install instructions for Windows where they tell you go and download the program from Microsoft (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool). That does not work with this iso. Plus that is a very old program.
At this point, I’m ready to go, I put in the new USB Cruzer Fit and the USB that I put the install in and go to boot. Took me awhile to figure out that Dell T20 requires the USB boot installer to be the first USB that it finds. If you put them in different order it does not work. This is the first time that I have seen a BIOS that won’t let you choose which USB drive. Really kind of strange. I figured out the order and got it to boot up.
This is where I run into my issue with the Installer. I get the menu that has:
1 Install/update
2 Shell
3 Reboot System
4 Shutdown
I put (1 Install/update), but the menu comes back and it does not give me a list of drive to choose where to install. I tried moving the Cruzer Fit to different USB ports but it just won’t get past the menu. I spent like 20 mins fooling around with this. I then went and downloaded the older version of FreeNAS and had the same issue. Just for the hell of it, I stuck the 2rd new Cruzer Fit into a USB port and guess what? I got the next menu where you could choose the install. Since my configuration that I saved with with 11.2, I went back to that version of the installer and boot from that with both of the new Cruzer Fits installed. I got the menu where you could choose which drive to install on. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the “Choose destination media” menu. Because something was off with one of the Cruzer Fits it did not have the device name (da0p2) in front like the other drives. But it saw one of them fine, so I choose it. Did the install, then I sent up the mirror by going to (System -> Boot Environments -> [Boot Pool Status]) and clicking the 3 dots by freenas-boot and clicking on
